Saturday, May 14, 2016

After a great suggestion by a Twitch viewer this past Thursday, I've been tossing around ideas of implemented a chat-based PVP feature in my stream!

For those that don't know, I added a currency (currently called Tokens, probably being renamed to "Fortune Cookies" after another stream viewer's suggestion) that accumulates over time to ALL viewers in my chat.

This currency is currently only used to buy lottery tickets (at 10 "cookies" apiece). This is designed to give loyal viewers a leg up when it comes to getting rewards in EVE Online. The currency is accrued at 1 token per minute in my channel, but can be multiplied based off of a couple stats: if I'm not playing EVE, it gets 2x, if I'm the #1 EVE streamer it will be 5x, and manual options are open to me if I'm feeling generous.

Now, onto the future. Development is going to go in waves, but I really would like feedback to guide which direction I should head, and how certain "mechanics" should go, and whether this entire endeavor is a waste of time.

My Vision

I wish to add PVP, but as a hybrid of consensual and non-consensual, mixed with a little risk/reward.

I do not want players to be able to siphon from existing balances in wallets.

I do not want random viewers to be targets of attack.

Naming conventions and typical mechanics should be scifi-based, maybe even EVE Online-centric. Current concept is to roll with Dust514 mercs (players) shooting Rogue drones and each other.

So, with those things outlined, here is the phases in which I'll be developing and the idea behind each:

A Wild Drone Appears

First, I will add PVE.

At some intervals, or at designated viewer counts (help me figure out what is better), a random NPC will spawn, and will alert chat. It will have random base Hit Point (HP), and random base Attack Power (AP). Using these stats, a loot value (in tokens/cookies) will be calculated. (Do you think any of these stats be affected by any active stream multiplier?)

After the NPC spawns, you will be able to opt in to the Party by a command - probably something like:

!game join

This will add you to the party, and you will have some base stats that will be the same for everyone. (Should there be an entry fee, adding some risk? Should the entry fee be dynamic, buffing stats on entry?)

After a grace period (5 minutes or 10 players? need feedback!) the join phase will end, and the NPC's HP/AP will be buffed to match the amount of players involved.

The combat phase begins, which consists of turns. These turns will have 2 components, a declaration phase and a damage phase. Declaration phase will be what action you will do, and after a timer (1 minute or when all players declare?) the damage phase will occur, where the NPC and players will all take damage simultaneously (for now). Players will currently have the option to attack, with a command like:

!game attack

During declaration phase, the NPC will randomly pick from ALL (living) players in the party, regardless of whether they attacked or not. However, I will implement a chance system that will reduce the likelihood of being attacked if you are not attacking the NPC. Keep in mind that it WILL take many turns to eliminate the NPC, and it's HP/AP will not reduce if players are killed, so sitting it out may not be the best option.

When the NPC dies, the loot (tokens/cookies) will be split evenly among all the surviving players.

I've already begun development on this feature and hope to have it rolled out in the next couple weeks to my twitch channel.

Band of Backstabbers

Next I will add a PVP phase, where you can kill other players in the Party to take their cut of the NPC drops! This will be a final combat phase, after the NPC is killed, where players can execute attack living members of the Party, using a command like:

!game attack PLAYERNAME

This feature will be coupled with a release of a new stat I will add to each player called Defense Power (DP, lol). This stat will behave as defensive damage and will be different than AP. DP will be naturally higher than AP, but will be negatively affected by another new stat called Security Status (SS), as well as split among all the attackers. So, having a DP of 18, but being gang-banged by all 9 other members of your party would reduce your defensive damage to 2 to each person.

Declaring an attack against a player with a SS higher than -5.0 will reduce your SS, down to a minimum of -10.0. Killing the NPC and not attacking players with >-5.0 SS will increase your SS, scaled off of the difficulty of the NPC. Kind of like a system is a game we are familiar with...

A scenario:

Player A stats: HP=2 (after taking damage); AP=2, DP=5, SS=0.0.

Player B stats: HP=3; AP=2; DP=5; SS=0.0.

Player A attacks Player B, reducing his SS to -0.1. Player A hopes 2 things: Player B attacks another player, making him wide open (no DP for defense) and that another player jumps in on B to kill him. This does not happen however, and Player A takes 5 damage from Player B's DP, killing him and dropping his loot.

The question I pose to you is: should B be granted A's loot? I vote no, since there has to be a advantages to being aggressive that come from the added risk they take by attacking. But I would like to hear your thoughts.

Another scenario :

Same Player A and Player B from above.

Player C stats: HP=1; AP=2; DP=3 SS=-2.0.

Players A and C attack Player B. Player B attacks Player C. Since B is attacking C, no DP will be taken into account, so both A and C will kill B without taking damage from the DP. However, C will be killed by B at the same time (all damage is done simultaneously, for now). Loot from B and C drop, but A will only receive loot from B.

Now, when I make it so priority attacking becomes a feature, and quickness is a stat, some damage will apply before others, and B could kill C before taking damage from him, taking his loot, and survive A's attack, or even die to a 3rd attacker, dropping the loot for the surviving attackers to scoop, but that's the future.

This mechanic is further off and is in need for more discussion.

I'm Just Here For The Loot

What good (chat-based) RPG is complete without some sweet loot?

After I sort out the PVP concept, I'll move on to stat-boosting equipment. This, in and of itself, will have many phases:

One-time use items assigned to your Twitch ID that you could use at any time. "!game use ITEM." They'll be things like token multipliers, HP repair, AP buff, things like that.

Stock drops that automatically apply to your character. They would be a single item you'd get in a drop that would attach to your character and boost a stat permanently.

Slot layouts where different items go to different slots that boost different stats.

Now, my desire is to implement a page on my website where you could edit your character. I do not, however, want to have any type of bullshit login credential nonsense that typically results in me having to recovery lazy idiots' passwords and a whole mess of other issues. Instead I'd implement a pass code system where a Twitch user would enter into chat something along the lines of:

!game equipment

Which will spit out a PM with a numeric string (i.e.: "08893487162380") that could be entered into a page, which then cross references against a temporary entry in database and return dynamically generated tables containing all your "character's" equipment.

Keep in mind, I'm not a web developer, so this shit will likely be a data table like my music request page with a button "EQUIP" that will place an item into a "slot" on your character. Don't imagine graphics or anything fancy any time this year, lol.

Once I get that functioning, it wouldn't be too hard to add a sell button to sell off gear you don't want for tokens.

And from there, if I'm still motivated after all that, I could make a market table that would contain all "sold" items that can then be purchased.

To get the pass code, my app would have to be live and running, so you'd have to catch me online or just leave your browser open indefinitely on the page. The temp pass codes will likely expire after a couple minutes.

Feedback

All of these ideas are just that: ideas. I don't really follow other Twitch streamers, I don't know what others have already implemented, but I like to believe that my features (developed by myself in a vacuum) are pretty unique so far and hope to keep providing new features for new and loyal viewers alike.

Now, keep in mind, I'm not a game developer by any stretch of the imagination, and we are literally using a text chat to play this "game." Graphics, animations, sound effects, are all outside my abilities at this time, but this feature could be a fun way for CaptLFStern to back stab James_Trantor.

Monday, March 28, 2016

We all want to carve out a place for us among the stars. But to build it takes a lot of raw minerals and advanced PI. We SMERG / Tso's are famous for not doing either..... So I invoke a competition to complete the requirements. I paid a researched the all the BPO's for construction. I will hand out BPC's to all who request, only one BPC at a time.

127 Structures (2 Completed)

As I collect completed structure donations I will be be giving the Grand Prize Winner this Suit:

2nd Place:

- 1 Skill Injector

- 1 Leopard

- 5 "Augmented" Hammerhead or Hobogoblin

3rd Place:

- 5 Gekco's

-1 Gnosis

4th Place:

- 1 Confessor

- 1 Magus

I wanted the reward pool to be rich enough so that we can focus and be ready for Lauch day when Citadels are released. Also extra structure components will be used to make Mediums and help recoup funds!

Monday, February 15, 2016

TSO.....Here is the deal, we moved back to Seyllin and Ane #TakingBackSeyllin. With this we need to invest in so POCO's and POS's so we can keep all of the industry fags happy. POCO 1 Siege 1 we reinforced a tower to come out on our off time...well suck a fuck this was not good. Because of the timer we would have no support.

So the reinforce timer came and a SOLD. Nidderhauger came to rep the shields.... we knew that there was back up so there was no way we where going to touch it. This bait smelled of rotten fish, like an ex-girlfriend or something. However, our War Targets didn't know that at all!!! We inadvertently baited them into the system (*cough*RectAnus moving his frieghter during war*cough*). So A-TEAM countered with their carrier ... so them this:

Friday, December 4, 2015

It's been several months since our last inner-alliance tournament, and the lack of motivation to do another team-based one has been quite apparent on mumble. So, for this HOLIDAY season, we've decided to try something a little different.

In the past, we typically split all the participants into teams, typically 4 teams of 3-4 people each (our activity level blows). But after harvesting buckets of tears from those that hated what teams they ended up on, I decided to go with a alternative approach: FREE FOR ALL.

Now, since I love Magic The Gathering, I figured a simple frigate or cruiser FFA would be pretty damn unoriginal, so the format is as follows:

Names of all the participants will be randomly ordered.

A ship hull can only be chosen ONCE

The participants will choose hulls in their random order on this coming Sunday (Dec 6). Anyone late to the party will pick in order that I talk to them on mumble.

Prizes will be awarded based off of kill participation, with an equal prize (500M ISK) for most kills in a cruiser, in a destroyer, and in a frigate, to encourage maximum variety in choices.

Additional prizes (like last man standing) will be up to an "achievement" system, where any member can donate a prize attached to a condition. Once that condition is met, the player(s) that accomplished the task will be awarded.

Obvious/public collusion before the match is punished by randomized ship hull selection done by myself for the offenders.

Collusion DURING the match is highly encouraged, but there must be only 1 survivor.

Monday, August 10, 2015

We lost EVERYTHING in null space, all the POS's, Infrastructure, Fuel, Ships and I can't be more proud!

A clean slate to stage prepare and to be all that is terrible. We were flying by the seat of our pants like a bunch of low-sec pirates and we need to be organized like "null bears". I still have some pretty terrible ideas on what we can do and a couple extra structure laying around. Our noble leader and myself have lives, or we are just pretending not to be here. But this will be a team effort to hold the Sov that we take....again.

Before I (WE) put down more structures in Null lets have a plan and some friends... intentions are great but some follow through is better!

Friday, July 24, 2015

A lot of people have reported this story, but I figured I should go ahead and make a first-hand account that exists beyond a Reddit thread.

CCP, for legal reasons, has reworked their Alliance logo policy. As Kaphine pointed out in a previous blog, our redesigned/cleaned up logo (courtesy of Xavior Harkonnen), was rejected barely 2 days after the announcement of the new logo policy.

Now, for clarification, the logo was NOT rejected for color problems, or the quality of the image, or the (insert graphic design terminology I know nothing about) having/being too much/not enough (insert appropriate negative adjective for said art-thing). It was rejected for:

"The nature of it's content."

This means what is being depicted, not the quality of what is being depicted. This is important, since it was the number one question everyone, inside and outside Tso's had when I announced the rejection. It's a good assumption, given that my Alliance is shit at following directions in EVE, we'd more than likely be shit at following a dev blog's instructions on how to make a 512 x 512 image.

Immediately after the rejection, I ran to Reddit, to see if any other Alliance submissions had been so quickly rejected. After rolling back 3 pages from the front, I decided to make my own. My intention was not to stir shit nor cause community backlash against CCP, or to farm the ever-precious karma.

Karma, you know, this thing Carson Daly invented.

I simply wanted to see if we were the odd bunch out, or if logo's were being rejected left and right. Instead, the thread got a bit out of hand, with plenty of threats about burning Jita/Amarr/CCP Headquarters. There were posts pointing out that if the takeout box was rejected, then surely TEST's Middle Management Dino or Goons Fatbee would HAVE to be rejected, right?

Whether those coming to Tso's support did so out of compassion "for the little guy" or were doing so to begin polarizing the community to defend their own submission-rejections in the future, I can't be certain. The response to the thread was largely behind Tso's, either way.

A few trolls called the art crappy (if only they looked at our old logo).

Another reply pointed out (an unknown fact to me) that our design wasn't original, and that the basic outline was lifted from an open-use site. Now, this got me a bit fired up at my own guys, since the history behind the current designed involved a draft (done by me) being mocked and rejected, and then Yin showed me a design he had "made" that we all preferred. This eventually became our logo, and only Salid knew that Yin had lifted the design. Granted, he absolutely created a vastly-improved, derivative work, but it burns my ass that he mocked my design and didn't even create his own idea...

Back to my conversation with CCP Falcon, I attempted to get an idea of what alternatives might get accepted, so I listed off all those that Tso's members came up with on Mumble.

He replied.

This moved my reaction from disappointment to anger. I posted this update to my Reddit thread, and it caused even hotter responses, since none of the creative ideas were likely to be approved. Many comments pointed out that nothing is "grimdark" enough for CCP's new "art vision" and that the game is no longer allowed to be shaped by players, like the amazingly successful "This is EVE" trailer claimed, and we have to leave the sandbox to enter the narrow "art vision" for the future of EVE.

So, this will make it through, right? Image courtesy of Salo.

CCP held a meeting the day of the thread, discussing the topic with CSM members, including our #1 vote, Sugar Kyle.

She even popped onto our comms that night to talk me off the proverbial cliff. She explained that the takeout box's relation to our name isn't necessarily clear outside of the United States, and that maintaining clear dialog with CCP Falcon (instead of creating shit-storm inducing Reddit threads) might be a better means to finding a compromise.

I took her advice and talked to Squidgit, Dark Drifter, and Xavior about where we could go from here. We all desired to get the box through, but at the very least include chopsticks. My art guys whipped out rough sketches that I resubmitted later that week, with an apology for the Reddit thread and an explanation of our history (6 year birthday went by in March, btw.)

Some time went by, and more threads were going up on Reddit regarding logos being rejected, including an interesting site that was created by robotdonny to document the rejected ones. This was the intent of my original thread, of course, but his idea was much better.

Now, I've still yet to receive an "official" email stating this is fact, but I know that CCP love the open correspondence environment of Reddit, so I feel confident that this news is true. Of course, we won't know until the new logo's go live next month, and I will update this post accordingly.

As a thank-you to the community, Tso's will (hopefully) be bringing a surprise to EVE Vegas this fall for showing their support.

The Forever Irrelevant

This is the crappy blog of the crappy General Tso's Alliance from EVE Online/Dust 514. It is about internet spaceships and immortal mercenaries, and the drama caused by the fact that they are serious both business.

We feature a fairly unique concept of allowing multiple authors to post, and to write in any style they wish. The authors names are attached the bottom of every post, and a total list of authors is visible below.

We are constantly looking for more authors among our ranks, and will consider outside authors if they prove entertaining enough as writers.